Grief, "If You're Here You Must Be Dead", and Straw Hat Pirates

I wasn't intending on publishing anything while I worked on my Scroll No More entry because this cold is sapping my energy and it's taking long enough without additional distractions.

Then the events related below unfolded and I realised I had to share this.

I want to preface this all by making it clear if there was any belief that I was somehow okay. I'm not. I'm a mess.

That's not a plea for sympathy etc. I mean I won't stop you but I'm just making it clear.

Anyway, onto the...matter at hand.

So I had a dream. 

Oh dear. 

Many people's worst nightmares. 

When someone says they want to share their latest dream. 

But, stick with me. 

It's going to be quite the ride.

I didn't give it a worthy enough introduction. I had one of the best, worst, scariest, strangest, saddest and most dream dreams I've ever. 

I woke with wet around my eyes and on my pillow. 

I shit you not and yes it's because I cried. 

Heavily. 

But I'll get to that.

So initially we were at a formal gathering, a religious event of some kind. In a large hall with a few thousand people. There were a lot of young people speaking to members of the opposite sex. Just for dating reasons and pretence of maturity nothing sordid. A young boy insisted on going home to go get dressed into something smarter. He was about ten. In retrospect I think he wanted to change because he had a stain on his shirt and didn't want the girl to see him.

Stuck with the car we drive into a ditch or a little ledge accidentally and then the car got stuck..Ruth got annoyed and left the car before me when I went to look for her I couldn't find her. I was in a cafe where there were some people I knew, and many people speaking in a foreign language. Even though I don't think I had gone to a different country. So then there was a bit when I decided to leave the event and somehow ended up on this country lane down a hill from where the event was held that would, in my mind, take me back to my house or a house I knew.

I passed the same little ten year old returning to the event after a change of clothes. He looked much the same but had freshly ironed beige shorts, smart shoes and a smart shirt. He was skipping with excitement. As he passed, a few yards behind him came a woman I sent She was with her husband, though his face was blurry, hers resembled Taylor Swift but older.

When I got to the house, although it felt like home or my childhood home it wasn't quite the same as my actual childhood home. As I walked through the door,which was open for some reason. Just inside, in the hallway was some dog poo. I quickly found one of the bathrooms and a wet wipe to lift and flush it before Ruth came down the stairs.

When I walked from the bathroom, my Dad was standing in the open reception hallway entrance of the house. My Dad who has been dead for over a year now. Looking like he did in the 90s. He said hi son. If you're here it must be because you're dead.

This shocked me. 

Hurt me. And while I have different views from the dream as to what comes next when I die, I was worried that perhaps my mind was in turmoil because somehow my being under the weather was worse than a cold and perhaps I'd never wake. "I can't die. I don't want to die. I want to see my Mum." Was a paraphrased estimation of my tear fuelled cries. Unfortunately. I didn't stay there or. Fortunately depending on how you see it. It would have been nice to spend some time with Dad even in my head. But alas.

Things shifted and I "woke up" into another layer of the dream, alive in a completely different place, plane, or existence from Dad. Actually in a modern office sorta setting. The main lights were all off and there was a mess of cables running to and from different cubicles and spaces partitioned off. I realised quite quickly that it was where I was working (based on my work as a cleaner at Asda supermarket, on a branch in Leeds, though I never slept at work) and even more surprising was the fact that our poodle, Mick was there with me and he had done a poo. I remembered there were two ways out. One way would lead into other more open office spaces, but that way was a no go because I heard a voice of someone I know, incidentally not related to work, and the presenter Davina McCall. I couldn't go there, because then I'd be caught and would get into trouble for taking the dog to work and sleeping there even though in my dream mind I had done it before, so I went the opposite way, leaving the dog in a corner, I think but carrying the poo in some tissue looking for a bin.

I walked through the modern designed back space of the Asda supermarket that does not resemble any I've ever been to and then entered onto the shop floor, hiding what I was holding from all the customers and staff I walked by. A sea of faces I can't really recall any one of note but I did hear two cleaners, older Scottish ladies discussing their supervisor, as they pushed a cleaning trolley down the middle of the store. "Walter Koenig (evidently not the same Walter Koenig as the recently deceased Star Trek actor but perhaps that's why his name entered my dream) is the best Black Scottish man I've ever known"

So yeah. I eventually found the toilets which were located similarly to where the customer toilets were in the store I used to work as a cleaner in Leeds. As I waited in the queue, when I eventually got into the Gents. There was another queue and in it was two strange men. One seems like some bully character I had seen in a show or a film, had a pendant hanging low down, spoke in a North Eastern American accent, either Boston, Baltimore or New York. Asking what it was I was holding as I looked down he did that childish thing of pointing then flicking up at my chin.

The other guy was a man I apparently have an ongoing beef with.. I told him so. That he looked like he was still trying to look like some kinda Twilight guy. Hinting that I felt that was ridiculous since so long has passed since the books and films had been released. He was much taller than me. Like I'm not short. I'm about 5"11. But he was a good 7". He had a Stetson on, a black cape and black trousers and a black shirt I think and maybe a red tie or neckerchief. Already he doesn't sound Twilight and it took me a while to sus that in the dream. He had either a tattoo, facepaint or makeup or some kinda mask around his eyes. He was becoming more agitated at my dismissive nature of his life choices and as he bore down on me I saw he had a bandana under his Stetson with the Straw Hat Pirates from One Piece, my favourite anime and favourite show right now, potentially of all time. I got annoyed at him because it meant I couldn't be pissed at him anymore. Because he loved One Piece.

Then he started smiling and laughing and shimmied and stretched his long arms out to do some kinda jazz hands saying it was just like One Piece for two rivals to bond over some common ground. (The show is masterful at that, especially as Luffy the main character befriends known villains on all sides of the conflicts in that world, because he doesn't really pay attention to what he's heard about people if they prove to be different to the rumours or he feels they are different to the rumours) Then it ended And in retrospect I think the guy was built like and dressed like a One Piece or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.